The ethical dilemma of being prepared when other people aren't

This is somewhat of another sequel to the previous post about old MREs.  Don�t worry, this isn�t turning into an MRE blog, but there�s an important aspect of emergency preparedness that people tend to ignore, and I want to raise it here: How do you prepare for the desired number of days without ignoring the plight of those around you who didn�t prepare?  As we head into the season when people are most likely to think about the folks who are less fortunate, it seems like a fitting topic.  I don�t have perfect answers, but I would like to offer some food for thought.

Here�s a scenario:

Being wise and sensible, and a frequent reader of this blog, you have stashed away enough food, water, and other supplies to be self-sufficient for at least 7 days after a disaster even if your regular supply of food was at a low point when the disaster struck.  The food has not gone bad, the water is fine, your kit is in a reasonable location, etc.  Then, a major earthquake occurs!  Stores and banks are closed, and everyone is on their own for a while.  Good thing you and your family are set for 7 days.  But wait: the neighboring family never got around to preparing, or didn�t think it was that important, and after 2 days, they are out of food!  Or perhaps several neighbor families.  They are hungry; they have hungry kids.  They see that you have enough for 7 days, and they ask you for some of your food.  �You don�t need 7 days of food; surely the stores will open or the government will bring in supplies before then, and my son is hungry now!�  And these aren�t total stranger neighbors; these are your friends.

What are you going to do?

After all, the whole point of your careful preparations over the years, for just this event, was to have supplies to last you and your family for 7 days, not to have 7 days worth of supplies that you hand out to other people on the 2nd day and then you don�t have any more for yourselves on the 4th day.  Basically, if you desire to be prepared for 7 days, you should have the right to do so.

Well, I�m not a professional ethicist or a spiritual leader, and even the fact that I consider myself to be an ethical guy doesn�t give me the standing to dictate the correct moral solution.  However, I have thought about the issue a great deal for many years, so at least that puts me in the position to make one non-controversial point: if you have supplies for your family for 7 days, and other families (especially with children) near you have none, then you are going to have a problem.  My goal in this blog is to point out potential post-quake problems and to suggest pre-quake solutions.  In this case, my pre-quake solution is: don�t ignore this issue.  Your solution, depending on your philosophy, could be �I�ll make sure that I have enough and won�t be able to give anything to anyone who didn�t prepare.�  It could be �I will not turn down a neighbor in need; guess I may not really have 7 days of supplies after all.�  I suspect many people would be uncomfortable with the first, and the second seems rather self-defeating.  Surely there�s a way to have 7 days of supplies without refusing to help hungry neighbors or other people in need.

Surely there�s a middle ground.

One way out of this would be to have purchased enough food for your family AND for a few extra people.  It would certainly be very thoughtful.  On the other hand, if you are storing MREs, they are actually rather expensive, so storing away a substantial amount of extras increases the financial burden.

Those who read my previous article know where this is headed.

I am reluctant to officially give advice here, but I�ll tell you what I have done.  Because I have demonstrated repeatedly to my satisfaction that MREs are still fine even after twice their �best by� shelf life (calculated the old way, not the new shorter way), I am storing not only the current batch but the previous batch as well.  That is, I have a �current� box of MREs that are within their recommended lifespan, and I have a �previous� box of MREs that have surpassed that shelf life.  The batch even before that (14 years old) was still good, and I not only ate the few that I tested for the previous article, but I have gradually used up all of the other 14 year-old provisions over the past couple of months so that I don�t end up throwing entire MRE batches into the garbage and waste all that money.

This way, I have all of the current provisions that I had planned on having, and I also have the previous cycle stored away that I could use to hand out to those who needed a boost.  If I did that, I would certainly explain to the recipient all about the shelf life and my 14 year old MRE experiment, and would probably be there when the first one was opened to ensure that it was as good as expected, perhaps even taking a bite to prove that I wasn�t passing off bad food!  The fact that my current 14-year-old MREs are fine suggests, but doesn�t prove, that the next 14-year-old MREs will be fine.  In fact, my experience was only with one manufacturer, Mil-Spec, and there are other brands out there so perhaps my experience won�t extend to those.  I suspect, however, that these are all packaged in essentially the same way.  Still, I�d feel better inspecting one to ensure it hasn�t ballooned out and doesn�t smell bad before passing it off to others, and I could also ensure that I could warn them about dishes known to become unappetizing over time (such as the applesauce and jam).

So there�s my humble suggestion on how this problem might be avoided without any extra outlay of money if your MREs have already gone through a �best by� cycle and you have a previous batch.  It takes up extra space but the space isn�t wasted; in fact, if you don�t have to give these to other people, then you can even consider it an extra layer of protection if the aftermath of a disaster lasts longer than 7 days.  If you have only purchased MREs for the first time, then clearly this isn�t applicable to you; perhaps you could store away a few extra cans for the purpose (but remember that the shelf lives are just 2-3 years).

Sorry, this also doesn�t apply to emergency water, since having uncovered a few months ago that the commercial bottled water from the store doesn�t really expire, you won�t have an �old batch� to give people, but at least there are other sources of drinkable water and ways to purify questionable water, so this isn�t as big of a problem.

Now, if any readers have gotten to this point and are thinking �what a jerk, passing off expired food to other people,� I emphasize again that I�ve been eating these myself, and haven't found it to be a bad experience.  I think this is a creative solution to two problems: how to help the less prepared people around you while still successfully having your full 7 days of supplies, and how to avoid wasting food that is still good.  Even if you are well-prepared, the first few days after a disaster may not be enjoyable, but hopefully your stomach and conscience will both be feeling ok.

>>back to blog

MRE shelf-life follow-up: Ever wonder what a 14-year-old MRE tastes like?

Several days ago, I ate an MRE with an expiration date of 2005, and lived to tell about it.  Actually, it was pretty decent, Chili and Macaroni �Menu #4� from Mil-Spec packaged in 1999, not any worse in flavor or texture than what one would expect from a typical canned version from the grocery store.  Considering its age, it was practically gourmet!

For those of you who have not been following this blog since May of 2011, I wrote an article about MREs (meals ready to eat; military/emergency rations that are popular in emergency kits) in which I reported that while MREs have long had charts from suppliers showing shelf lives as long as 10 years depending on ambient room storage temperature, the official estimated shelf lives had recently been made considerably shorter.  However, I also reported that this was based not on �going bad� but instead on subjective taster opinions about when the meals were no longer at their best flavor and texture, and that there was every reason to think that they would be edible and not harmful for years to come.  There are reports that most of the components (notably not peanut butter, cheese spread, or applesauce) were just fine at the end of the shelf life, and I myself had tried eating one at the end of the 7-year recommended shelf life period corresponding to the ~70-75 degree F temperature of my closet (in 2005) and had found it perfectly fine, if admittedly not finely perfect.  I therefore kept that batch for back-up (more on this in a future post) and purchased a new batch with a recommended shelf life for my closet temperature of 2005-2012.

Well, here we are at the end of that new cycle, a little late actually in 2013, but I figured it was ok based on the experience with the 2005 expiration meal at the end of its recommended life.  I purchased a new batch (this will be 2013-2020), planning to keep the remaining 2005-2012 MREs as backup, and found again that a new meal that I tried was better than the expired 2005-2012 MRE, but the expired one was not bad.  So naturally, I had to find out what had happened to the ones with 2005 expiration that I had been keeping as a back-up; would they have truly been edible if I had had to resort to eating them in the present?  I opened up each packet and sniffed first without encountering any foul smells.  Then I heated up the entr�e and gingerly touched my tongue to it, so far so good.  Took a small bite, no problems noted at all.  Ate the meal, mmm mmm good.  And there you have it, the 2005 �expired� meal, which was packaged in 1999, was about as good in 2013 as it probably would have been in 2005.

To be exact, the chili and macaroni was fine, not up to restaurant or homemade standards but certainly worthy of canned lunch food.  The crackers were ok, with just the SLIGHTEST hint of �old cracker� taste but really not bad.  The chocolate covered cookie was delicious.  However, the packet of strawberry jam was darker than I imagine it was initially, and had a slight old smell to it; it probably would not have been bad for the health but I opted to not eat it.  Of course, I scoffed at the instant coffee packet.  (Starbucks, bless their hearts, are like cockroaches in a way; they will still be on every corner after the earthquake or nuclear blast.)

A few days later, I tried another one from that old batch, beef stew.  I squeezed it out of its package into a bowl (I didn�t bother using the heater packet and just microwaved it instead) and got a little worried because it did not look very appetizing.  I microwaved it and stirred it up, and it actually looked a lot better, but I was still skeptical at the tiny size of the pieces of beef and potato.  However, when I ate it, I was pleasantly surprised; despite the small size of the meat pieces, they were nice and meaty with good texture, not tough, not mushy; the potatoes held up; a little on the salty side but not a deal breaker�again, as good as I would expect from a can, and this was 14 years old.  A third meal, with an entree of chicken breast strips with chunky salsa, was also quite good despite the chicken being a little dense; although the applesauce was dark as expected, looking and smelling like a cut apple that had been left out too long; I tossed the applesauce.

This is consistent with an article that came out recently in the San Francisco Chronicle about �expiration� and �best by� dates of food frequently being far earlier than necessary, resulting in the disposal of massive amounts of good food by US consumers.  It�s also in line with what I recently reported in this blog about the FDA stating that expiration dates on bottled water were not really valid and there was not actually a reason to dump out store-bought emergency water jugs every couple of years.

In fact, I�m starting to get a little nervous because here I am telling you about how its ok to drink expired water and eat expired food...let�s just frankly remind everyone that I don�t have a higher truth and can�t make official statements that something is safe; I cannot guarantee your health and would not want to be held legally responsible for telling you do ignore an expiration date.  I can, however, tell you that the FDA has said exactly that for the water, and that the expiration dates for the MREs have best-by estimates that are not based on health, but rather on taste and texture.  You should use your natural senses and good judgment to determine if something in an old MRE is clearly bad (smells odd, green fuzzy things swimming in it, populations of microscopic Whos yelling �we�re HERE,� etc.) as you would with any long-term stored food.

Want to know when your MRE was packaged?  Each MRE component is date coded with a series of numbers.  The numbers include the production year, and the day produced in addition to a lot number extension.  Look for a number stamped on the package that looks like 9077M1 2 1FD2 (in the case of my old MRE that I tried).  The last groups of numbers refer to lot number so you can disregard them, and the packaging date is encoded in the first numbers, 9077M1, just in the first four digits.  The �9� in 9077M1 stands for the last digit of the year, which is presumably 1999 since I purchased it in 2000 (one bought today with a number like that would presumably be from 2009 but you need to have some rough idea of how old it is to be sure).  Next look for the three subsequent numbers.  In mine, 077 represents the 77th day of the year, or March 18th.  So my old MRE that I tried, with a stamped number of 9077M1 2 1FD2, was presumably packaged on the 77th day of 1999, which is March 18, 1999.

[Update, 12/31/18: I have some MREs from a different manufacturer, MRE-STAR, and the number  before the letter has 5 digits rather than 4: "16173B2 07:47"  I purchased this set in 2016, so I'm guessing that rather than the first number denoting the last digit of the packaging year, this company may take a more user-friendly approach and the first two digits are the year, which would be 2016 and would make sense.  Then presumably the 173 would be June 20, 2016; although that isn't really all that important.]

So now I have three different batches of MREs, one current, one recently �expired� as a back-up, and one legacy group of MREs that probably had siblings that fed US troops in Kosovo.  That last group is still ok but I don�t know how much longer it will be that way, so I don�t plan on keeping that whole batch around for another cycle (more on this in a future post).  I will just eat the remaining old MREs occasionally over the next few weeks to not waste the money (although the sodium content of these varies widely, from 10% to 64% of the daily suggested amounts in the ones at which I looked, and some have partially hydrogenated oils; save daily consumption for emergencies).  However, I think I�ll stash one or two of them away to test in 2020, out of morbid curiosity, and I�ll report back...I guess that means I�m committing to this blog for at least 7 more years!

>>back to blog

The new Bay Bridge opened today: A Loma Prieta earthquake repair 24 years in the making

I normally try to keep this blog pretty general, keeping in mind that people are reading it all over the world. This month, however, we are focused on the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge (or just the �Bay Bridge� as everyone calls it here), because it�s a momentous weekend. The eastern span that was damaged in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake is being replaced by a new eastern span that opened Monday night, almost exactly 24 years later (but half a day earlier than scheduled), after a 5-day long closure of this vital transportation link while they move the connections from the old bridge to the new one.

New eastern span in front of the old eastern span
(Steve Jurvetson, Menlo Park, http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ANew_and_Old_Bay_Bridge_(8859593785).jpg)

Nonetheless, this is an earthquake story coming and going; having been started because of an earthquake in the previous millennium and resulting in new structure built to withstand the type of quake that is expected every one and a half millennia.

I�ll give a bit of background here and then will link to a very interesting and informative story that appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle on Sunday, about the preparations for what was to have been Tuesday�s grand opening of the new Bay Bridge (although it opened ahead of schedule, Monday night).

Bay Bridge western span
� T�relio (via Wikimedia-Commons)

For those who live farther away, who may not be familiar with the Bay Bridge, this is the less-famous but more economically vital cousin of the Golden Gate Bridge. The two bridges opened within a year of each other: the Bay Bridge opened in 1936 and the Golden Gate Bridge opened in 1937. The Bay Bridge is a graceful double decker suspension bridge (actually two of them in a row, with an anchorage in the middle) connecting San Francisco�s east coast to Yerba Buena Island in the middle of the Bay, then turns into a two-level tunnel through the island, and then continues to the East Bay (Emeryville and Oakland) via what has been a utilitarian double decker cantilever bridge full of metal girders that looks, well, let�s just say that San Francisco definitely got the better end of the deal from an aesthetic standpoint. It�s about 4.5 miles from start to finish and is the main auto transportation link between San Francisco and Oakland.

Bay Bridge eastern span (original)
(http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:EasternSFO_OAKBrFromTI.jpg#filelinks)

Collapsed section
(C.E. Meyer, U.S. Geological Survey, public domain)

On October 17, 1989, the Loma Prieta earthquake hit the San Andreas Fault just south of the San Francisco Bay Area, 6.9 on the Richter Scale. In addition to the many other problems caused by the quake, a section of the top roadway on the eastern span of the Bay Bridge collapsed onto the lower deck, killing a motorist and causing transit havoc. The eastern span was built on Douglas fir tree trunks driven about 100 ft into the mud at the bottom of the Bay, which is subject to liquefaction during large earthquakes. Furthermore, the bridge was not built to withstand the horizontal movement and one section of the top deck literally slid off of its support. The bridge was repaired and reopened, but it was clear that something had to be done about its continued inability to withstand earthquakes of the size that occur here every few decades. The western span was retrofitted a few years ago, but it was decided that completely replacing the eastern span was more economical than retrofitting it. After years of arguing about engineering and aesthetic design, construction begin in 2002 on a much safer, much prettier bridge.

Despite cost overruns, continued design debates, and ironically, the discovery earlier this year that many of the bolts and seismic safety rods in the bridge were defective, the technologically cutting-edge, self-anchored single tower suspension span started carrying traffic today.

For some pretty incredible information about its seismic design (basically, just about every piece is only loosely connected to every other piece!), check out this article that the San Francisco Chronicle ran on Sunday. I encourage you to flip through the photo gallery; some of those pictures give you a great contrast between the old and new bridges. One of them is actually a short video, which is also worth watching. There is a lot of extra information in a diagram that shouldn't be missed (this graphic on the Chronicle site currently has a technical glitch so that it can't be enlarged and is unreadable; I've notified them and have temporarily posted an enlargeable version here).

Next, they start dismantling the old bridge. That should take them about 3 years. Unless, of course, the next big quake hits before they finish; that could shorten the job!

>>back to blog

Does bottled water really expire? The FDA says no!

Every now and then, during the question period at the end of my talks, I get asked how long bottled water lasts and whether you can keep it past the expiration date; and I experience temporary panic.  You see, I have typically kept my bottled water a year or two past the printed expiration date, because I�ve found it to be such a hassle to lug 14 gallons (in our case; 1 gallon per person per day for 7 days*) to a sink, empty them (it takes a LONG TIME), discard the jugs, and lug 14 more gallons from the store and individually bag them to put them on the shelf in our closet!  I figure that even if it was unhealthy to frequently drink water that had been stored too long in plastic jugs, my emergency water is for an extremely rare event and I won�t mind a few days of it. 

(*QuakePrepare.com recently pointed out that the Red Cross now suggests 14 days of supplies...but we don�t have enough space!)

However, I worry about giving this advice to people, because while I have felt that it is probably not a problem, I don�t know for sure.  I would not want to counsel people to drink water that was potentially contaminated with leached chemicals.  So, I answer that the expiration date on those gallon jugs typically gives you a year or two, and that I tended to over-store mine but this was not official advice and I could not guarantee that the water was healthy.

Well, yesterday I was reading a back issue of Consumer Reports (from October 2012), and they had a letter in their �ask our experts� column asking how long water should be used after purchase and whether the expiration date was meaningful.  To my surprise, they said that the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) considered bottled water to have an indefinite storage life as long as it was produced in accordance with regulations and was unopened.  Let�s take a closer look at this, because not having to rotate out all this water would avoid a major hassle.

I found an article on the FDA website from February/March 2002 about bottled water that concurred with what Consumer Reports said.  Among the notable text:

"In the U.S., bottled water and tap water are regulated by two different agencies; the FDA regulates bottled water and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulates tap water... FDA regulates bottled water as a food... Bottled water is considered to have an indefinite safety shelf life if it is produced in accordance with CGMP [Current Good Manufacturing Process] and quality standard regulations and is stored in an unopened, properly sealed container. Therefore, FDA does not require an expiration date for bottled water. However, long-term storage of bottled water may result in aesthetic defects, such as off-odor and taste. Bottlers may voluntarily put expiration dates on their labels...�

Should I turn my gas off after an earthquake? Don't guess about gas...

This topic took several months to research, so I haven�t posted in a while.  I�m finally wading into this after years of giving talks without being able to give clear advice on how to handle gas after an earthquake.  It can be confusing.  On the one hand, it seems safest to turn off your gas, but on the other hand, the official advice from various utility companies and emergency organizations is to not turn the gas off unless you suspect a leak...and yet on the third hand, many sources are telling you to get automatic gas shut-off valves.  How do we fold our three hands together to make sense of these seemingly mixed messages?  I�ve spoken over the last few years, and especially the last few months, with various earthquake safety experts, fire marshals, fire department representatives, Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E), and Southern California Gas (SoCalGas), and here�s my attempt to make sense of it all.


Turning it off

First of all, should you turn it off?  If a quake occurs, and you are in your home because you wisely did not attempt to run out of it in the middle of the quake, first determine if you smell gas.  If you do smell gas, open a window if you easily can, and get everyone out of the building right away; do not flip electrical switches on or off, do not open refrigerators with door-switched interior lights, do not use telephones, and do not do anything else that could cause a spark.  Then turn off the gas that leads into the home.

(The wrench is attached to a
different pipe not visible in
this photo)

This means you need to already know how to turn off the gas.  Single-family homes and small apartment complexes typically have pretty obvious gas meters outside; you should know where yours is, and know how to turn it off.  This photo shows a typical gas meter.  See that simple metal circle on the pipe with the raised ridge (tang) that is parallel to the pipe?  That means the gas is on.  If you were to turn it 90 degrees with the wrench so that the ridge is perpendicular to the pipe, as if it was blocking it, then the gas would be off.  If you live in a large complex, ask the manager (ahead of time) how to shut off the gas.

If you don�t smell gas, then listen for hissing noises, and go down to the meter and see whether the dial is spinning even when you aren�t using any gas appliances.  These would also indicate gas leaks, and you should turn the gas off.  The gas companies say: if you don�t suspect a leak, don�t turn off the gas (see below).

(LEGAL DISCLAIMER: the advice to not turn off the gas if you don�t suspect a leak is from PG&E and SoCalGas, not from me.  I am reporting what the utilities companies, and the Red Cross, officially recommend.)

Three things for you to do this week:

1)  Find your meter so you know where it is.

2)  Get an appropriate wrench that can fit the tang and is capable of turning the valve, and attach it with wire to the meter so that you don�t have to go find one at the last minute.

3)  Test the valve by turning it slightly; not off, but just a little bit.  There�s a good chance that you can�t move it!  These valves freeze in position due to being exposed to outside conditions for years, and if you can�t turn off the gas when you need to, that�s what is technically known in emergency management circles as �A Bad Thing.�  Fortunately, if you can�t move it, you can call your utilities company and they will send someone out to fix it for free; at least that is the case with PG&E.

If you suspected a leak and turned off your gas, don�t even THINK about turning it back on until you have the utilities company come to check and possibly repair the gas lines.

Leaving it on (if you turn it off, don�t turn it back on!)

While it may seem like the safest thing to do is to simply turn off your gas even if you don�t suspect a leak, turning it off has consequences also because you are not supposed to turn it back on afterward.  If you turn it off without suspecting a leak, then there�s no way to know if there is actually a leak that would have just taken longer to be noticed.  Then you turn the gas back on and start filling your home with gas if there really was damage to the gas line.  That is, your reason for turning off the gas in the first place will never end until someone like PG&E or a qualified inspector can tell you if there is a leak.  Plus, there are various scenarios in which re-establishing the main gas flow to pilot lights and appliances could be dangerous, especially with post-quake uncertainties.  For these reasons, the gas companies don�t want you to turn your gas back on if you have turned it off after an earthquake.  Note that it can take weeks for them to visit large numbers of customers throughout the metropolitan area, so if you turn off your gas, you may be without gas for weeks. 

After the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, PG&E tried in vain to convince their customers to NOT turn off the gas unless they suspected a leak, including use of local media; but 80% of the customers in San Francisco turned off their gas and it took 3 weeks for PG&E to restore gas for everyone, despite the use of outside contractors to augment their ranks.

SoCalGas gives advice on its website that is identical to PG&E�s advice: only turn off the gas if you suspect a leak, and don�t turn it back on yourself.  The Red Cross� advice is similar: turn off gas if you smell it or suspect a leak, and don�t turn it back on.

Despite this, I have spoken with a couple of independent earthquake safety experts and a local fire marshal who think everyone should turn off their gas, figuring that it could cause annoyance to large numbers of people but could also prevent hundreds of fires.  If you do this, though, be prepared to wait a long time before you have gas again.  I do not believe that complete consensus will be reached on this point, but it may be moot if you have an automatic shut-off valve; read on.

Automatic gas shut-off valves in earthquakes

�Now wait a minute,� you say, �if I am not supposed to automatically turn off my gas, why am I being urged to install an automatic gas shut-off valve??�  PG&E is officially neutral about automatic shut-off valves.  The City of Berkeley recently adopted a policy that requires automatic gas shut-off valves to be installed in all buildings being built or renovated (although the Berkeley Fire Department is neutral), various other communities have similar policies, and some insurance companies give you a discount on premiums if you have an automatic gas shut-off valve.  But doesn�t this contradict the official recommendation to not turn off your gas unless you suspect a leak?

PG&E is taking a very pragmatic view of this issue: even though they might shudder at the idea of a whole community having its gas turned off, they are also aware that it�s being required and encouraged in many places and won�t try to interfere with that.  Berkeley initially did not require these valves for several reasons, including that the earlier versions of the valves were so sensitive that they would get shut down by passing trucks, but they are better now, and should only trip if the building moves in a ~5.4 magnitude earthquake or higher.

Plus, there are real advantages to automatic shut-off valves that I find compelling.  The concept of only turning off the gas if you suspect a leak assumes that you are home to be able to make this decision.  If nobody is home and there is a leak, you�ll come home to a house full of gas and potentially blow it up when you turn on the lights.  If you have pets who are home while you are at work, they could inhale gas.  Furthermore, the gas that builds up in your home may impact your neighbors in various ways.  So an automatic shut-off valve minimizes the chances that a gas leak will cause problems while you are away.

However, turning off the gas is turning of the gas, whether you did it or an automatic shut-off valve did it.  These automatic shut-off valves are sometimes marketed as being very easy and straightforward for the consumer to reset, which sends mixed messages to the public about whether they should reset their automatic valves after a quake.  PG&E says: leave it off.  If your automatic valve shut off due to an earthquake, then it�s the same story as if you had turned it off yourself: wait for the utilities company to turn it back on in case there was damage to the lines.  SoCalGas has said on its website that you may reset an automatic valve after a quake, but they recommend that you don�t (http://www.socalgas.com/safety/valves.shtml accessed 4/27/13; I�ve pointed out the mixed message to them, and this wording may change).  

(5/9/13 update:  While some communities are mandating installation of the automatic shut-off valves in new developments to prevent fires, the prospect of wide-spread automatic gas shut-downs lasting for several weeks has made San Francisco seismic safety officials reluctant to pursue extensive installation of these valves.  They are concerned that the potentially extended lack of heat and hot water could cause hardship for elderly or otherwise vulnerable residents whose gas didn't need to be turned off in the first place.  It could also encourage many residents to leave the city during the post-quake period, which would delay recovery by depressing services and business operations, not to mention volunteer recovery efforts.  I feel that a potential solution to these conflicting priorities could be for cities and gas companies or the Public Utilities Commission to establish guidelines making it easier for automatic valves to be reset rapidly.  This might include official training and certification of large building property managers to reset automatic valves and check for leaks, creating a registry of residences with frail occupants who are the first priority for gas check/restoration, and perhaps inspection of residences by gas companies to determine ahead of time which of them fall into specific situations that allow safe valve resets by occupants, to be followed by the same leak evaluations that most people would undertake immediately after the quake anyway.  This is just my opinion.)

Automatic gas shut-off valves in the absence of an earthquake

The reason that these automatic valves are sometimes described as being easy to reset is that if your automatic valve keeps turning off because of a passing garbage truck (or some kid bouncing a basketball off your house, or perhaps an errant overfed butterfly if you have one of the old valves), then they make it theoretically possible to turn it back on IF YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE DOING.  You would need to follow the manufacturer�s instructions and ensure that you are not restoring gas to unlit pilot lights that are allowing that gas to seep into your home, even in the absence of a quake.  Many modern appliances use spark igniters rather than constantly lit pilot lights, and modern pilot lights have safety features that shut off the gas flow if the flame is not lit; these require you to turn a dial to a special pilot light position to light it.  If you have older pilot lights, then re-establishing gas to an unlit pilot light and lighting it afterward can be dangerous; have the utilities company do it.  However, PG&E makes the blanket statement that they want you to never reset an automatic shut-off valve, even if it shut down for non-earthquake reasons; they want to do it.  SoCalGas states that the California Public Utilities Commission requires that �only SoCalGas or its certified contractors are authorized to operate the gas shut-off valve� (in its jurisdiction).  There�s no way I�m going to make a recommendation that contradicts the law and official safety recommendations of utilities companies.  You might think you know what you are doing, but you might end up surprising yourself the hard way.  At least in a non-earthquake situation, you won�t have to wait very long for the gas company to reset your service.  And if the kid keeps hitting your valve with the basketball, sign her up for a league.

Getting your gas restored after an earthquake

If you need to have your gas turned back on, don�t assume the utilities company will know that you need restoration; you may need to inform them.  If phones and computers are down, this could be difficult, but between flagging down utilities workers in the street, waiting for communications to be restored, or finding other ways to communicate, you�ll reach them one way or another.  They will also sweep through neighborhoods sooner or later.

A word to the self-sufficient

Some of you might be thinking to yourself that you turn your pilot lights on and off all the time, so what difference does it make to restore gas and relight the pilot lights?  However, there�s a fundamental difference between turning gas on and off to a furnace or stove, and restoring it to the whole building, especially given the uncertainty caused by an earthquake.  In this case, leave it off.

This is a good reason to keep some compact foldable camping thermal blankets in your emergency kit!

Last word

Those of us who have gas appliances deal with them every day, and it�s easy to take gas safety for granted.  Please remember that many fires after earthquakes would not have occurred if people had been more respectful of the explosive fumes coursing through the pipes in their homes.  Firm knowledge of how, when, and if to turn gas on and off after an earthquake is wiser than basing your actions on shaky grounds.

>>back to blog

Big emergency kit for home, little emergency kits for work and car

We spend a lot of time discussing emergency kits for the home.   Those kits should be geared mostly toward keeping yourself supplied at home if the stores and banks are closed, and at least part should be a portable kit that you casually take to a shelter with you.  You presumably won�t need to grab it and run out of the building during a quake, because you are not supposed to run out of a building during a quake.  So these emergency kits can be large and contain supplies for up to 7 days.

But what about where you work, and your car?  It�s important to think about such things, because if you are stuck somewhere that isn�t home, your home emergency kit isn�t going to be much help to you.  Here are some thoughts about how to go about preparing work and car kits.

First, let�s think about the workplace.  What you need in the kit depends on the circumstances that you might face at work.  To my mind, there are two main scenarios: (1) you are at your workplace and there is no way to get home, and (2) you are physically stuck inside your workplace.  The first scenario is much more likely than the second in general.  However, it varies by situation.  If you work a reasonable walking distance away from your home, then the concept of not being able to get home isn�t relevant, and your work kit could be pretty minimal and just focus on what would happen if, for some reason like a jammed door, you couldn�t get out and the windows weren�t practical exits (very unlikely situation).  If your main concern is being stuck inside an office, then having some food and water for a day or two and having a radio and flashlight with spare batteries, and a small medical kit, is a pretty good emergency kit.  Of course, being stuck, you might wish you had stashed a crowbar.  I actually have a crowbar in my office, because it�s a windowless office with a single door that opens outwards, and it�s not out of the question that it either jams or that something else moves outside of the door and blocks it from opening.

But more likely, you work far enough away from home that getting back home may be impractical if the roads are blocked or public transportation is down.  Around here in the San Francisco Bay Area, many people do bridge or tunnel commutes (Golden Gate Bridge, Bay Bridge, BART tunnel under the bay, etc.).  While one bridge down just makes people go to the next bridge, a failure on one bridge can make the authorities close the other bridges for a while, as Marin commuters discovered after the 1989 Loma Prieta quake when the Golden Gate Bridge was shut down in response to the Bay Bridge�s failure.  If you can�t get home, and stores and restaurants aren�t functioning, then your primary goal for an emergency kit is to tide you over with food and water, with flashlight and radio and probably medical kit, until you can get home somehow.  Hmm, sounds an awful lot like what I suggested for the first scenario.

Here�s one more thing to think about: if you are working within a somewhat long walking distance from home, and you typically work in uncomfortable shoes, think about keeping a pair of old comfortable shoes in the work place so that you don�t do that 2-mile walk home in high heels or uncomfortable men�s suit shoes.

When might you need an emergency kit in your car?  Being literally stuck inside your car is not impossible, but it would be a relatively rare consequence of an earthquake.  Much more likely, you have been driving around somewhere that is not in walking distance from home, and the roads home are too damaged or are gridlocked.  Food, water, comfortable shoes if you don�t wear them already, radio in case your car battery gives out, flashlight...it�s starting to sound familiar!  (In fact, it makes sense to have supplies like this in your car even if you live in a region that does not experience earthquakes.)  But in the car, compactness might be more important.  Also keep in mind that any emergency food supplies kept in the car probably will expire more quickly than the food you keep in your home and work kits, due to the car sometimes being left out in the heat.  Having a cable that enables you to charge your cell phone from your car battery is worthwhile.

One more thing to consider is that, more than what you might keep at work, the car kit could be even more useful if it is easily portable, like in a backpack.  I admit that as I write this, my emergency car supplies are wedged into spaces that accommodate them, like in the well with the spare tire; but if you find yourself needing to hoof it due to impassable roads and impossible driving conditions, carrying your emergency supplies with you could be quite nice.  It all depends on what you have room for permanently in your car trunk.

If you are worried about really getting stuck inside your car, due to an earthquake, dramatic fall from a bridge, or unfortunately timed discovery of a living Tyrannosaurus rex, having a Life Hammer^� in the car can help you cut seat belts and smash side windows.  I got one of those a couple of years ago.  It�s still on my desk, as I try to figure out how to mount the darned thing.

I�m sure many people will have other ideas of what should be stashed in these places: foldable rain jackets, etc.  You might want to think about what is in your home kit and decide whether it is worthwhile to you to have more in your work or car kit.  What I have described is the basic situation for both places.  In fact, if any readers out there have personal experiences from 1989 Loma Prieta, 1994 Northridge, or other situations in which you had to leave your car taking the supplies, feel free to use the comment feature on this blog to tell people what worked well for you and what you lacked but wished you had.  That means that interested readers should check back later to see if anyone posted suggestions. 

One of these days, there will probably be an iPhone app that not only lets the phone double as a radio, map, and flashlight, as it already does, but also makes it become edible and wearable on both feet.  Until that day, having emergency supplies at work and in the car makes a whole lot of sense, since you never know where you will be when you have to rely on them.

>>back to blog